Sales of books on Islam rocket after France attacks…

Ed-note (Sabba) – This article, taken from a french jewish website, asks if the Quran promotes violence… We will not even ask “and how about the torah?” and stick to the Quran.

We often see one verse being quoted ad-nauseam: “Fight those who do not believe in God or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what God and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled” (9:29).

Those who like to quote this verse fail into looking in the context in which it was revealed; the most of them time have never read the Quran itself, and lack the proper methodology to study it. They take one verse in isolation and think they know it all and have worked it all out! Had they read at least once in their life the entire book, they would see that there are dozens of other verses saying the exact opposite. Here is a handful of them but there are of course many more.

2:190-192 – “Fight against those who fight against you in the way of  God, but do not aggress for God does not love transgressors…Then if they desist, know well that God is Ever-Forgiving, Most Compassionate.”

8:61 – If they resort to peace, so shall you, and put your trust in GOD. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient.

4:90 – if they leave you alone, refrain from fighting you, and offer you peace, then GOD gives you no excuse to fight them.

2:256 – There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.

5:69 – “Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabians and the Christians whoever believes in God and the last day and does good– they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.”

18:29 – “Say “This is the truth from your Lord,” then whoever wills let him believe, and whoever wills let him disbelieve…”

Source: I24news.tv

A special magazine supplement focused on the Koran has flown off the shelves, and shops are selling more books on Islam than ever after the Paris attacks in January that left 17 dead.

“The French are asking more and more questions, and they feel less satisfied than ever by the answers they’re getting from the media,” said Fabrice Gerschel, director ofPhilosophie magazine, which published the supplement.

Sales of books on Islam were three times higher in the first quarter of 2015 than this time last year, according to the French National Union of Bookshops.

Mathilde Mahieux, of La Procure chain of bookshops that specializes in religion, said people want a better understanding of the religion that the brutal Islamic State (IS) group claims to represent, so that they can make up their own minds.

– ‘Is the Koran violent?’ –

The jihadist attacks against the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket have left many non-Muslims looking for answers.

“A very Catholic lady came to buy a copy of the Koran, because she wanted to understand for herself whether or not (Islam) is a violent religion,” said Yvon Gilabert, who runs a bookshop in Nantes, western France.

Others want to see past extremist interpretations of Islam.

“I think we have to know how to see past the fundamentalism, in order to see what religions have to offer,” said Patrice Besnard, a regular at a Paris bookshop specializing in religions.

Enraged by the jihadists’ interpretation of the Koran, Mansour said his company has withdrawn several books that offered “too literal” an interpretation of Islam from his catalogue.

He warned about people diving into reading the Koran “unaccompanied” and jumping to conclusions on its highly poetic text. Instead he recommends that the uninitiated start by reading a biography of the Prophet Muhammed.

Claude Brenti, of the Catholic publisher Beatitudes, said he has noticed a change in attitudes among scholars.

“In certain Muslim circles there was a refusal to critically analyse the text, but now I see some thinkers are changing,” he said.

With the IS’s brutality creating shockwaves since its emergence in 2013, publishers like Mansour were already selling more books on Islam even before the Paris attacks.

Twice as many books published in France last year were dedicated to Islam than to Christianity, according to the publishing weekly, Hebdo Livres.

And at France’s largest book fair in March the biggest seller for Le Cerf imprint, which is run by the Catholic Dominican order, was “A Christian Reads The Koran”, a reprint of a book first published with much less fanfare in 1984.

It was far from the only hot title dealing with Islam at the fair, with the US publisher Columbia University Press snapping up the rights to “The Silent Koran, the Talking Koran” by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, as well as the paperback launch of rapper Abd al Malik’s bestseller “May Allah bless France”.

Even the publisher of the year’s big non-fiction hit, The French Suicide, whose controversial author Eric Zemmour has been accused of Islamophobia and stirring up anti-immigrant feeling, made a strong play at the fair of its new translation of the Koran as well as a “Plea for Fraternity” by the Muslim philosopher Abdennour Bidar.”